A tip for how not to feel like an idiot.

If you have any kind of evidence that you were ever under the age of 18, don't go looking at it.

For example, I have on one of my hard drives several versions of several websites I created and maintained while I was in high school. I should not have done that. I should definitely not have kept them. And I should especially not be looking at them now, because wow, that's depressing.

Also, I liked crap. And I used smileys to excess. And quoted lyrics ALL THE TIME (okay, so that's not changed too much, but it should have).

I may be a dork now, but I was dork^n back then.

I hope we both die.

The following is the subject line of an email I received today from Amazon.com:

Amazon.com recommends Funeral

I hope you die, too, Amazon. I hope we both die.

Just saw Broken Flowers. The people I saw it with said the trailer gave away all the jokes, but they still enjoyed it, and I did too. With movies like that, it seems best to avoid detailed reviews and trailers prior to seeing the movie. I'd rather have the ability to absorb it, unbiased. Unless liking Jim Jarmusch and Bill Murray counts as bias, which I'd imagine it does a little. It's the first Jarmusch movie that I found laugh-out-loud funny, though his others are funny, too.

Afterwards, we sipped iced tea and enjoyed the manufactured environment of Santana Row. It was sunny, but not too warm, and there was a breeze. We complained about the Disneyland Main Street USA for the Platinum card set-ness of it all, but secretly, it's not that the place is manufactured that arouses my suspicions. It's the lack of non-manufactured alternatives. It's great to have a place to sit comfortably, sip tea, and chat with friends, just as it's great to have a giant bookstore where you can browse all kinds of reading material and get a coffee and sit on a couch, but something about the experience at Santana Row, just like at Borders/Barnes & Noble, rings false. That's what makes me sad.

Rob writes a rap.

About me. Hee.

[roboter] emily's burning it up. west coast! you suckas don't front it.
[roboter] emily's like Bam! like cannon. cause thats her last name.
[roboter] I'm making a rap song about emily.
[roboter] take notes! you dead wrong. emily fix your spellin. she's got it going on.

Then he had to go work.

What's that? Yes, Rob IS the coolest mothafucka in Yuma, Arizona.

The pizza that is, should be.

I am awesome with the cheater pizza. Awesome, I say.

Tonight's concoction: whole wheat dough, spread 1/4" thin and round, with sauteed red onion, diced marinated fire-roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, and a healthy sprinkling of red pepper flakes, topped with chopped baby spinach, feta, and a mixture of "Mediterranean" cheeses that melt nicely. After this is baked until the cheese is bubbly and the crust is lightly browned, add slices of some gorgeous fresh heirloom tomato.

This takes under 15 minutes, not counting the baking and the anticipation.

It's nice when being lazy pays off.

A post that is not a list.

Here's a possible first since moving to California: I got out of the house two nights in a row. Both times because of the Editor.

When we first started talking, he'd made a generous offer of sitting down to talk about writing with me. I took him up on it, at least as a first step, because god knows I've written jack shit since college. It was a very encouraging talk, and he gave me a lot to think about and specific things to do, which I'm gonna do. (I hate saying it that way, though, because I keep saying I'M GONNA DO SOMETHING and then not doing it. I have to work on my follow-through.)

Tonight he called me up and said I should come to this deal in Mountain View his paper was having, and despite my usual array of social anxieties, I showed up. It ended up being pretty cool, and I got to meet some of his staffers, which provided further ass-kicking in the direction of not being a lump anymore.

Jesus, that was convoluted. I want to write?

There was also a guy from the local Green Party, who gave us a half-drunken spiel about energy conservation and Green activism and tried to sell us stickers. Another guy, upon hearing my name, complimented it, saying it sounded very East Coast. I told him that was funny, because I'm West Coast through and through.

Anyway, back to the writing thing, since I'm trying to concentrate on it. I need to think about--make a list--of topics I'd like to write about. Story ideas. It's difficult for me to get into that mindset. It was difficult even when it was what I had to do, though not for a living, but for school. So that's task no. 1.

The trouble now lays in my horrible complacency. I may complain about boredom and not wanting to stagnant, but part of me is happy to be in a fairly comfortable--though who knows how ultimately unstable--place, at least for the moment. Then, when I think about breaking out of that mold, I have to confront my insecurities and anxieties, which are numerous, but whose aren't? What's so fucking insurmountable about mine that I can't get over them enough to do something I want to do when other people have?

So there's all that inward-thinking, which, in addition to merely exacerbating the aforementioned insecurities and anxieties, cloud any judgment I have with regard to what's interesting in the world that I could write about. Hah.

I do know that I won't be happy if I stay where I am forever, or even in a place close to it. It's not fulfilling. There's a lot of good in it, but my heart isn't in it. I can only cut my teeth for so long before they start to dull.

Oceanographer's choice.

1.

Well, guy in a skeleton costume goes up to the guy
In the Superman suit and runs through him with a broadsword.

(Link swiped from Defamer.)

2.

Wouldn't it be great if they made a tiny cell phone that was designed so the earpiece was on your thumb and the mouthpiece was on your pinky?

Think about it.

Things I did this weekend.

A list:

1. Spent too much on dinner at Citronelle with my boyfriend. It was open late and I remembered incorrectly where the restaurant we wanted to try existed, so it was out of desperation.

2. Slept in, in the only way I can: by waking up early, then passing out repeatedly until I get bored.

3. Went to TJ Maxx and bought a lightweight black hoodie and a nice Anolon hard anodized 10"/3-qt. saute pan.

4. Watched the last disc of Homicide season 3.

5. Ordered and picked up some pizza from Amici's again.

6. Slept in slightly less.

7. Watched the second disc of Deadwood season 1, which warmed me to the show.

8. Took a walk around the part of the Don Edwards SF Bay National Wildlife Refuge that has an entrance in Alviso. Saw a pretty sunset and some pretty birds and things.

9. Got burritos for dinner.

10. Now there is a fucking jackhammer outside. It's time to go.

Because I am a big dork...

I'm totally excited to learn that there is an open source layout program: Scribus.

Not that almost anyone besides me will give a shit, but whoa.

It appears to have the same basic functionality as Quark and Adobe's products, though the interface and navigation are going to take some getting used to. I had the same problem with the GIMP at first, and now it all makes sense.

Anyway, it made me think that I'd like to do the zine project with as much open source stuff as possible. Not in an overt way; I don't want it to be *about* open source by any means, but I'd like to make something that uses open source and isn't a purely geek exercise. I think open source is way cool, and it would be fun to apply it to something other than my minimal Linux skills.

Life as a situation comedy.

Two tales of Friday:

1. My boyfriend, leaning heavily on Curb Your Enthusiasm for inspiration, wants to start carrying marbles with him to restaurants. With the marbles, he plans to test waitstaff patience by experimenting with the angle of the table surface. Will it roll? How much is the table tilted?

He thinks this would make a great focus for a restaurant review site, though he is unwilling to dissuade people from trying a restaurant based on his own reviews. I asked if the reviews would focus on the flatness of the eating surface or the quality of the food, and he said both.

A side note: In high school, I carried around a small velveteen pouch containing two marbles and a semi-precious stone with the word "Peace" engraved on it. The latter was inside the pouch to symbolize "inner peace," (I know) but the marbles I carried around just so I wouldn't lose them. When I told Kevin that, he thought it was ridiculous. I'd lose them if I carried them around instead of keeping them in a safe place, he said. I said I didn't lose them then, but upon reflection, I don't know where they are now, so I guess I've lost my marbles.

2. Apologies to my coworker, should he ever find this, but he came into my office this afternoon just to tell me about a dream he'd had the night before. Apparently, his dream had a commercial. A commercial for Jennifer Aniston Sings Motown and R&B hits. He said he could hear her nasally voice in his dream.

I thought that was beautiful.

The best things always find me.

Sunday night ended up being some fun, as Kevin's dad, his girlfriend, and her daughter all stopped by in the evening. We hung out and ate ice cream (uh, well, mostly it was Kevin's dad and his girlfriend's daughter and I who polished off two pints of Haagen-Dazs, but who's counting) and played Apples to Apples. Kevin's dad beat everyone by a long shot.

(Side note to the Harem: It's hard to play the "Your Mom" custom card in a group where one player's mom is present, one player's dad is present and divorced from that player's mom, and one player's mom is deceased.)

Their impromptu visit spurred a rapid housecleaning effort by yours truly, as the house was in its usual embarrassingly disgusting state. Kevin's dad went into the backyard and picked up three grocery bags' worth of apples that had fallen to the ground but weren't rotten or wormy and took them home to juice.

The house stayed clean enough that I wasn't too embarrassed to ask the Editor over to watch a movie when he suggested we go catch one in the theater Monday night. I couldn't get the monitor in the living room to turn on, so I dragged Kevin's 13" TV out, swiped the RCA cable from my TV, and hooked up the hacked CyberHome player on a chair two feet from the couches. This worked out well, at least as soon as Kevin dug up the remote so we could turn on the subtitles.

The movie was Eyes Without a Face, a French thriller from 1959. It was damn good and creepy, though in retrospect, the concept of face-stealing seems ridiculous. It does make me wonder when cosmetic surgery became well-known, though, because that would have sort of negated the need for the entire plot of the film. And also, apparently Paris police are dumb. But it was enjoyable.

One complaint I have about Netflix is the lack of labeling things as Criterion Collection releases, and it would be nice to be able to search for those as well. Reckless Video in my old Seattle neighborhood had a special Criterion shelf, and it was always cool to pick something out of that and know I'd end up with something worthwhile.

I've been working on a small project at work that requires a modicum of creative thought. Imagine that. I also worked on five regular projects before 11, only to spend most of the rest of the day twiddling my thumbs. Sheesh.

I wish I had more interesting things to say, but I don't. I'm boring. Sorry.

The zine project is still being contemplated. I have emailed several of you and I EXPECT to hear back. Hah. (Jesse gets a pass due to the whole getting-married-in-Romania thing, but the rest of you!) My sister has offered to draw a political comic off "Stay Hungry." What will YOU do?

A valiant attempt.

I'm really trying to make a weekend. I am.

Yesterday I was out of the house from 9:30 until 3, shopping and watching a movie. (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was pretty good, by the way. If you're one of those people who never saw or didn't like the original movie, I'd even go so far as to say liking this one hardly amounts to blasphemy. It's a good adaptation of the novel rather than a rehash of the movie.) I went out again later to see what was at the local Ross, where I have decent luck finding clothes. Kevin and I had a late dinner of pizza takeout from Amici's in Mountain View. So far, so good.

This morning, I met up with my coworker and her roommate to drive up the winding Page Mill Road into the Palo Alto hills for a little hike. It was a lovely drive and a great little walk. But I was home before noon--wouldn't want to be out in the blazing full afternoon sun--and that left me with a whole afternoon to fill. Which I'm currently contemplating.

There's the North Beach Jazz Festival, which my sister suggested, though at this point, I'm feeling pretty beat and a trek into SF to watch jazz, which is not my favorite genre, sounds only mildly appealing. There are no other movies playing this afternoon within a 15-mi. radius of my house that I want to see. The few people I know are either working or busy or I don't want to bug them.

I do have a DVD to watch, at least. And I guess I could, uh, read or something.

But really, I did try.

Feeling fictional.

Maybe life has just gotten too dull, but my mind has turned to thoughts of the made up and surreal, even though that isn't its normal orientation. I had visions of a story about commercial pirates--the swashbuckling kind, not mp3 freeloaders--in a world with a zombie problem. This is the kind of thing I might think to write two paragraphs on and never return to, because I haven't got the heart for fiction.

And it struck me, maybe I've lost the heart for storytelling altogether. I can't tell you how many times I've started a story in the past few months, only to finish with the other person saying, "...yeah?," a disappointed lilt to their voice. There's all kinds of strange occurrences that become built up in my mind and turn to mush when I try to let them out. It's bad news.

I don't know how I ever wrote anything, at this point. I think about it and wonder how I had the patience and concentration.

I wonder if it's a symptom of thoughts I've been hiding away, like tshirts in an overflowing drawer, and now I can't close the drawer and I can't find anything, either. I'm getting lost in mundane metaphors and similes made up for the sake of pretending one neuron can still make a connection with another neuron in some meaningful way.

And I come here and tell you all about blah blah blah. Today I bought coffee. I was out. I ate lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant with some coworkers. I had the vegetable curry and fresh spring rolls. When I came home, my boyfriend and I went out for Ethiopian again. We always order the veggie combo and mitten shiro. The latter is as warm and comforting in my hands as its coincidental namesake.

I have plans to see a matinee of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and hit up some inexpensive clothing stores tomorrow. Sunday's plans remain tentative. I am trying very hard.

How is everyone else? Anyone want to write for my zine? I'll start. I'll get right on it. I'll make something real someday.

All the schadenfreude, none of the annoying singing.

That's what I've been telling people about So You Think You Can Dance, the surprisingly entertaining show that does for dancing what American Idol did for horrible vocal pop.* They take breakdancers and try to coreograph them. They tell effeminate male ballet dancers they aren't masculine enough. They fail to tell the fat chick en pointe that she looks like a hippo, though they do cringe a lot. Anyway, it's very funny, and I actually like watching people dance.

So I've been suckered into yet another shitty summer reality show. So what. It's not like I'll put off any social engagements to watch it.

"Social engagements." Hah!

Pretty much all I've done this week is go to work and actually spend most of the time working. I did see Once Upon a Time in the West, thanks to the Editor, who thought it a horrible oversight that I'd never seen it when I listed The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in my top 10 movies I liked a lot that I've seen more than once. He was right; it's a much bigger, richer, fulfilling movie, and once I see it a second time, I can switch it out on the list.

I am looking for weekend plans. Hello, weekend plans, where are you? I may do something with my coworker friend, like visit hilly San Francisco or some happy trees in the Santa Cruz area, but otherwise, I've been on the lookout for plans that have yet to materialize. I browsed Pollstar and some ticket sites and Metroactive for things of interest and nothing really caught my eye. Apparently there's some grand prix racing thing in downtown San Jose that's causing lots of streets to be closed and half my office is excited to go down and check it out; needless to say, I'm less interested.

Anyway, the thing is, I have to get out of the house for most of the weekend or my boyfriend will start to hate me. And I will start to hate myself (OH, TOO LATE). Unless I'm on the rag, in which case, I will be sitting in my swelteringly hot room in a fetal position, waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in.

I really want/need to see a show in the near-to-immediate future. I don't know what. Aja can't come in August for Dinosaur Jr and I don't know that I'd go alone; Kevin and I are going to Ben Folds and Rufus Wainwright in about a month, but that's not the kind of show where you rock out and get sweaty as fuck and are all like YEAH, though it should be enjoyable.

Besides, rocking out is good exercise, isn't it?

*Disclaimer: I am not, nor have I ever been, a regular viewer or fan of American Idol.

I have a dark chocolate-mint problem.

Namely, it's apparently hard to find. Whole Foods was out of the two tried-and-true bars in the "not obscene" price range that were not Ghiradelli (blech)--that is, the Endangered Species kind and the Lake Champlain bar--so I ended up with some Stonyfield Farms chocolate mint chip frozen yogurt. This was unfortunate, because it's not the traditional mint ice cream-chocolate chip arrangement, but rather dry, vaguely minty chips swimming in a barely chocolatey soup. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention to the label.

This comes in stark contrast to the "light" Haagen-Daz mint chocolate chip, which is barely less fattening than most regular grocery store ice creams, but incredibly delicious, or the Double Rainbow mint chocolate chip soy cream, which is so good, it makes me want to cry sometimes that the usual outlets seem not to be selling it anymore.

Yes, I am a whore. A whore for dark chocolate. And mint. But mostly chocolate.

So, I had kind of a bad weekend, and I don't want to go into it, but it could have meant a pretty major lifestyle change for me, but it has at least temporarily resolved itself, so don't you worry your pretty little heads about me. And don't fucking ask when I'm moving back to Seattle.

I need to get a life. I keep doing nothing, and it's really lame. I don't know why, either--it's like I'm terrified to do stuff alone. Which is so completely laughable, I don't even know what to think. I mean, consider the things I have done by my damn self: for god's sake, I went all the way around the world on my own to spend time with strangers. Why is it so hard for me to go hang out in a coffee shop or to a movie here?

On the plus side, we hung out with Kevin's dad and all that, sitting around the much-cooler Aptos when it was certainly 90+ degrees in San Jose and playing Pictionary well into the night. Heh. I watched Wild at Heart and Born into Brothels on Sunday, both of which were great. It was hot as fuck all day, which always makes me want to die.

But I'm not dead, and I'm not going to die.

An idea.

So, as you may know, I've been wanting to put together a zine for a long time now. I need a creative outlet that requires more effort than this beast and is a little less navel-gazing than redesigning the rest of my personal site, plus I've just always wanted to make a zine.

In my recent commenting back-and-forth with Julie, I came up with a new idea. Let me know what you think.

Each issue would be an album: It would take the title of the record, and each article would correspond to one of the songs. The link between the song and the subject of the story may be tenuous at best, but it's a jumping off point. The design could be inspired by the cover art of the album and such. All manner of subjects could be tackled; I just don't want poetry or a ton of fiction.

For example, one could be the Talking Heads' More Songs About Buildings and Food. The track listing on that album:

1. Thank You for Sending Me an Angel
2. With Our Love
3. The Good Thing
4. Warning Sign
5. The Girls Want to Be with the Girls
6. Found a Job
7. Artists Only
8. I'm Not in Love
9. Stay Hungry
10. Take Me to the River
11. The Big Country

Regardless of whether or not you know these songs, you could use the titles as inspiration for an essay, story, personal reflection, or feature about anything. Make sense?

Maybe this record is just general enough where others could be problematic. I don't know. Anyone want to give it a shot?

ETA: Here is a page with further suggestions.

Some things you just shouldn't do.

People shouldn't cross an arterial road at night against the light. That's just fucking insane. That's how I just almost fucking hit someone coming home tonight.

I was driving down a 5-lane road near my house with a speed limit of 35 mph, probably going about 40. Everyone does. I approached a light where there is a left turn signal. The oncoming traffic was stopped so someone could turn left from my side of the road and I had a green, so I kept driving. Suddenly, she appeared from among the stopped headlights, crossing against the light, and I screeched to a halt, certainly inches from her. She was running away with a terrified expression, but I didn't hit her. So I kept going, which was maybe not the right thing to do. Are you supposed to stop if you didn't actually hit? But jesus christ, she was running away.

If you're going to jaywalk, do it responsibly. Especially at night. Jesus fucking christ.

My heart was pounding and my body was shivering for the rest of the drive home. My god, what if I did hit her? What would have happened? Who is at fault?

As a driver, I know I have a responsibility to look out for pedestrians, which I do. I stop to let pedestrians cross when I'm waiting to turn right; I look both ways at the mid-block crosswalks in my neighborhood. I spent a long time as a pedestrian myself; I know what assholes drivers can be. Pedestrians should be given the right of way in all cases, but what if they're breaking the law and you don't see them?

What if my eyes failed me and I ran a red light without even knowing it?

What if someone witnessed it, thought I hit her, and called the police on my ass for a hit and run?

Thought-showers.

I wasn't even going to post today--not a whole hell of a lot to say--but I wanted to respond to this week's Free Will Astrology for me.

This week's horoscope was about brainstorms: "I don't care what term you employ, Sagittarius, as long as you just do it. You're overdue for prolonged encounters with mind volcanoes, imagination avalanches, and creativity hurricanes."

I AM A HURRICANE. I have killed people!

But I'm having trouble with my creative side. I just can't get started. I need to spend more time talking to people. This isn't even possible at work anymore because we are too freakin' busy. Unfortunately, that is my greatest exposure to fellow humans.

It's getting a little desperate up there in my head.

Also, cats are cool.

And in case you hadn't already seen these sites which have been making the Internet Dorkdom rounds for weeks already, here they are.

Kitten War

and

Stuff on my Cat

If I ever get a cat, I am naming it Snark. But I am allergic to cats and so is Kevin, so that isn't happening any time soon.

I will also take this opportunity to tell Aja that she needs to come here in August and we will go see Dinosaur Jr. Because just saying so on IRC isn't meaningful enough. I also promise pancakes and a rousing game of Apples to Apples.

Back and forth. Forever.

This is blatant google-baiting, but please go see Me and You and Everyone We Know so you will understand the line above. And then you will laugh with me about it. I cannot explain the joke because you will think I am dumb and it will ruin everything. Just, go.

And now, a round-up of recent search terms that brought people to my humble web abode.

mclenin's explanation
What's to explain? It's a tshirt with a drawing of Lenin and the Golden Arches. It says "The Party is Over." It's kind of awesome.

"daybed with storage"
Well, that's a fascinating search that brings you to a blog.

"bittersweet symphony" lyrics mourn
I don't know what this is referring to, exactly--I don't recall the word "mourn" in the song. Maybe a band called Mourn covered it.

skittles sheep boy commercial
I'm surprised how many hits I get from people searching for commercials. I wasn't sure what to make of that commercial, and I'm definitely not sure what to make of people who want to see it again so badly they google it.

carkeek park train pictures
Oh, this is a good one. My favorite park in the city of Seattle has a rickety pedestrian bridge that crosses the railroad to get to the beach. When the trains come, you can stand on the bridge and it feels almost like you're going to be swept away. (This effect is best felt with freight trains; Amtrak feels wussy in comparison.)

mister olympia 2004
Given that this referral was from the Portuguese google, I can only assume they are not referring to some kind of male pageant in my hometown.

Gravy Train song " You Make me Nervous" and
You make me nervous. hella, hella nervous
I get so many fucking hits for this lyric, I swear to god. The last time I did this, I had the same thing. Go here.

i was driving when the radiator burst mountain goats
The lyrics game will be the death of me. "See America Right" was the first Mountain Goats song I ever heard.

"trivial pursuit pop culture" questions
Oh, dude. These are fun, but ridiculously easy. RIDICULOUS. I recently played--I think it was the '90s edition; whatever it is Josie has that is recent--mopped the floor with it, friends. There is too much excess information floating around up there. This is how I know I am my father's daughter.

questionnaire Would you come to my funeral
Weeeeeird. I don't know what questionnaire you'd need someone to fill out to ensure full funeral attendance. I know at least two songs that refer to funerals, though: "Dress Sexy at my Funeral" by Smog and "With Bells On" by Sloan. Have fun searching.

"netflix for music"
Netflix for music that works exactly like movie Netflix would be lame. However, I can recommend eMusic as a cool mp3 downloading site.

"united state of electronica" KEXP dancers
Sometimes I'm surprised that my seething irritation with the U.S.E. doesn't get me hate mail, considering (1) how apparently popular they are in Seattle and (2) how many freaking hits I get about them.

the daily growl lyrics
I couldn't google them, either. Some bands are hard to find straight-up lyrics listings for when the 'net is so cluttered with reviews. Lambchop must be one of them.

swirlie
I don't even know what to say about this. It's so whimsical, and yet depressing.

No one has searched for "peanut butter and jelly, that's what I like in my belly" recently. I'm sad.

P-p-p-p-p-por favor!

Telemundo is showing Who Framed Roger Rabbit? right now, dubbed into Spanish, of course. Every time there is a visual component with English writing on it, there's some narrator who VO's the interpretation. This happened at least six times in the opening Baby Herman cartoon. It's awesome.

I spent a large chunk of the day watching episodes of Airline so I can return the DVD, then He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, which was really, really dumb. I saw the preview a few years ago and knew then what the basic plot would be. I'm not sure why I added it to my queue or how I neglected to take it out before I actually got it.

If it cools off around 6, we might go for a walk near the Bay, but otherwise, today is a day of extreme laziness. It's 80 degrees and that makes me want to die. I know, I know--that's nothing. Still, air conditioning is about the only reason to look forward to work tomorrow.

Man, Roger Rabbit has a more hilariously adverse reaction to liquor than I do. I just think it tastes like cough syrup, no matter how low the alcohol content or how tasty the supposed flavor. But it would be much cooler if my response to, "What? Why don't you drink?" was: "My eyes pop out of their sockets and I start changing colors and shaking violently."